sharing the creative process of artist, illustrator, and book lover, Judy Watson

Alice gets in on the action – sneak peek at one corner of spread 22-23

Funny how when you draw something upside down, your eye can lose its usual sense of proportion. This is the last in a series of head-stand sketches for Thunderstorm Dancing. In some of the earlier sketches, when I turned the picture the other way up after drawing, (so that the child was seen with with head upwards) I was amused to find that her head was enooooormously too large, and sometimes her body was extremely shortened.

However, I didn’t try drawing this picture the other way up. I felt the only way to get the right balance, weight and feeling was to draw her as she is to be seen on the page.